


The Gold iPod

by Adina



Category: PG Wodehouse - The Gold Bat, WODEHOUSE P. G. - Works
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:thefourthvine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 21:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what happens when you don't have time for historical research. I only hope that someday I may be forgiven. A semi-modern take on Wodehouse's "The Gold Bat."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gold iPod

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefourthvine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine/gifts).



"He's done it again."

"Oh?"

"Sir Useless Briggs. Another thing in the newspaper."

"Are we going to take steps?"

"Of course."

"We could hack his website."

"We did that last time. Besides, I think the headmaster entertains suspicions."

"True. We need a new rag."

For those to whom this dialogue may appear mysterious, the situation is quite easy to clarify: Sir Eustace Briggs, the Mayor of Wrykyn and noted Conservative politician rejoicing under the sobriquet 'Useless', had published yet another screed in the Wrykyn Patriot deploring the corrupting influence of the internet on the "youth of today." Messieurs Moriarty and O'Hara, as students at Wrykyn--that is, at the school which stood some half-mile outside that town and took its name from it--felt that they had a much more intimate knowledge of the youth of today than any aged politician. They found the internet less corrupting than the pernicious influence of Algebra and Latin (or at least less soporific), and thus could not find it in their hearts to agree with the gentleman. They had expressed their displeasure in the past by editing Sir Eustace's official website to suggest an overarching and perhaps not entirely proper interest in ferrets on the politician's part, but, as O'Hara had said, to do so again would suggest a lack of imagination on their own parts.

"He says youth are posting indecent pictures of themselves on MyBook pages," O'Hara, the original possessor of the newspaper, said. "D'you suppose he means MySpace, or Facebook?"

"There aren't enough indecent pictures on either," Moriarty said, possessing a healthy young man's interest in the subject. "At least not enough decent ones. Most of them are too dark and low res to see anything."

"Cheap web cams are a blight upon the moral fabric of this noble country," O'Hara agreed. " _That_ should be the subject of Sir Useless's next screed."

"I'm sure he's much too busy maying--mayoring?--the good people of Wrykyn to have the time," Moriarty said gravely. "Not to mention he wouldn't know a VGA, two mega-pixel, thirty frames per second USB 2.0 'cam from a two-pounds-fifty special from Tescos. " He smiled beatifically, "No, I think we should save him the effort..."

"...and write it for him," O'Hara said with an equally noble expression.

***

"Have you seen O'Hara?" Trevor asked some days later as he emerged from the computer lab to find Clowes loitering in the hallway. Clowes was not a frequent denizen of the lab, feeling that computers too closely resembled maths, a subject against which he took a firm stand.

"O'Hara? What on earth do you want O'Hara for?" Clowes asked, slouching against the wall with the relaxed posture that so infuriated the authorities of this and many other schools.

"He has my gold iPod," Trevor answered. "I lent it to him in the holidays."

A note of explanation would no doubt not be amiss on the subject of the gold iPod. Trevor, as the leader of the Wrykyn Wrockers, had been presented with a gold-plated iPod upon his band's winning the Next British Teen Idol competition. This gadget, loaded with music from all competitors, was the source of considerable envy amongst the students of the school.

"Well, I'm hanged if I'd trust O'Hara with my iPod," Clowes said, referring to his own silver-plated iPod, awarded to those members of the band of lesser stature than the leader. "You realize he has undoubtedly auctioned it off on eBay, don't you? Why'd you lend it to him?"

Trevor shrugged. "I know his people at home," he said. "His sister Honoria wanted to hear our song, so I sent it over with him last day of holidays and told him to bring it back to me here."

"Oh?" Clowes asked with a great deal of interest. Excessive interest in a fellow's sister was a fertile subject for ragging, and Clowes was never one to pass up an opportunity.

"His governor wouldn't let her stay up 'til eight to watch us," Trevor said pointedly. "She's only seven."

"I saw O'Hara heading over to the Hall," Clowes said, adroitly changing the subject before Trevor could turn the rag against him, the rule of rags stating that a failed rag must ricochet on its unsuccessful perpetrator. "He should still be there."

When they got to the Hall, a large, black BMW of uncertain age and no particular flair was pulling up at the front drive. They courteously stood aside as the headmaster and a rather florid and obviously aggrieved man entered the Hall, the florid gentleman gesticulating angrily as he apparently read the headmaster a terrific scold on some subject, the nature of which Trevor and Clowes could not determine.

They followed the headmaster and his guest in, not too close, of course, since one never wishes to attract an annoyed headmaster's attention lest one become the target of the wrath he cannot express elsewhere, and found O'Hara watching this procession from the shadows with a highly-satisfied smirk on his face.

"Who was that with the headmaster?" Trevor asked O'Hara, figuring that the florid man was probably the source of the smirk.

"That was Sir Eustace Briggs, the Mayor of Wrykyn," O'Hara explained, going on to expound on the mayor's views of the internet and the youth of today. "He believes that youth should get plenty of healthy outdoor exercise instead, such as cricket, football, and boxing," he concluded.

"Do you box outside?" Clowes asked. "I rather thought you did that in smoke-filled rings and dimly-lit illegal fight clubs."

"Perhaps they boxed out of doors in the antediluvian age when Sir Eustace was in school," O'Hara mused.

"I assume you've taken steps?" Trevor asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Steps, is it?" O'Hara said, chuckling. "Oh, aye--" He suddenly went serious. "You mustn't let it go any further. I would be sacked and Moriarty too."

"I should have known Moriarty would be your partner in crime," Trevor snorted. "Of course we won't nark you. Tell, tell!"

"From the beginning, if you please," Clowes interjected. "I do so love a good yarn."

"Oh, well, there isn't much to tell, really," O'Hara said with patently false modesty. "We read his latest letter to the Wrykyn Patriot and found it necessary to make a few judicious edits to the letter in the online version of the paper."

"A few edits?"

"Somehow it turned into a screed against low resolution web cams, and the posting of racy photos where nothing of interest can be discerned without an active imagination."

Clowes roared with laughter, only to be quashed by a passing housemaster. "Oh, that's ripping!" he exclaimed more quietly.

O'Hara gave a modest bow, doffing an imaginary cap.

"Won't he know it's you?" the ever more practical Trevor asked. "There was rather a row about that the last time, wasn't there?"

O'Hara smiled again, shrugged. "The lamentable Sir Eustace _has_ learned of IP addresses and all that rot," he said. "But I fancy if they trace the edits back they will find they originated on Sir Eustace's own computer, the one in the mayoral office."

"How on earth did you manage that?" Clowes asked, his expression somewhere between appalled and admiring.

"We snuck out last night, after lights out," O'Hara said. "It wasn't difficult to row across the river and Moriarty found a topping website with instructions on picking locks. We had a cozy evening in Sir Eustace's office and then snuck back in time for breakfast." He yawned. "Rather fatiguing, of course, but one must do one's civic duty."

Trevor shook his head, glad once more that O'Hara and Moriarty weren't in his house, and thus not his responsibility. "I say, about my iPod. You haven't lost it, I hope?"

O'Hara felt in his pocket, but brought his hand out at once and transferred it to another pocket. A look of anxiety came over his face, and was reflected in Trevor's.

"I could have sworn it was in that pocket," he said.

"You haven't lost it?" queried Trevor again.

"He has," said Clowes, confidently. "If you want to know where that iPod is, I should say you'd find it somewhere between the river and Sir Eustace's office. Under his desk, for choice. It seems to me--correct me if I am wrong--that you gone and done it, hacker boy."

"I'm sure it will turn up," O'Hara said earnestly. "Everyone knows it's yours, and no one would be rotten enough to latch onto it."

"I hope so," Trevor said. "I only hope it doesn't turn up at the Mayor's office."

***

Sir Eustace stayed for lunch, casting an indiscriminately baleful glare over all the students. He couldn't have found the gold iPod, Trevor reassured himself, else he, Trevor, would have been in the headmaster's office forthwith. That didn't mean he wouldn't find it, of course, and when he did an unholy row would ensue. The only bright spot was the surety that O'Hara, a basically sound egg, was sure to fess up if it was the only way to keep Trevor out of the mulligatawny. But he'd hate to see O'Hara go: he knew his people and they would be so disappointed in their prodigal son that O'Hara would probably be forced to flee to the colonies in shame.

The next morning Sir Eustace was back for breakfast, and there was no denying that his fishy eye was trained on Trevor's table. Trevor listened with dread, but no surprise, as he was ordered to report to the headmaster's office immediately after the meal. Like the condemned man walking to the scaffold he headed in that direction after the headmaster and his guest finished eating.

"Psst!" Trevor turned his head to find Moriarty lurking in a dark corner of the hallway outside the headmaster's office. "Quick, take this!" Moriarty hissed, stuffing a gleaming object into Trevor's trouser pocket. "Stout denial. Remember, stout denial!" he said before dashing off.

Trevor examined the mysterious object in his pocket before announcing himself at the headmaster's door: it was his gold iPod, gleaming as brightly as ever in the dim lit of the hallway, or at least it looked like it. Moriarty moved in strange ways, his wonders to perform. Trevor shook his head and tapped diffidently at the headmaster's door.

"Enter!" the headmaster bellowed. Trevor obeyed, coming to stand in front of that plenipotentate's desk. Sir Eustace was sitting in the visitor's chair, turned to look at him. "Ah, Mr. Trevor."

"Sir?"

"Serious allegations have arisen regarding the conduct of some student or students of this school," the headmaster said in his 'firm but fair' voice, implying as usual that he knew the worm under his heel was guilty but would not say so until the miscreant confessed or proof was provided. "You recently competed in the British Teen Idol competition, I believe, winning the coveted gold-plated iPod?"

Trevor decided that confusion was his best response. "Yes, sir. Is there a problem with that? The music master said the songs weren't objectionable," he added plaintively. Trevor wasn't wet enough to have asked Mr. Collins himself, of course, but he might as well reap the benefits of that unsolicited and unwelcome testimonial.

"No, no, of course not," the headmaster backpedaled hastily with an anxious look at Sir Eustace. "I'm sure the lyrics were entirely respectable. No, the problem is the gold-plated iPod."

"Sir?" Trevor continued to radiate confused innocence.

"You have not lost it, I suppose?" the headmaster asked coldly, prefatorily to creating a new excretory orifice in his victim.

"No, sir, I have it right here," Trevor said, patting his pocket.

"What!" Sir Eustace exclaimed.

"Yes, sir," Trevor repeated, pulling the disputed object out.

The headmaster gave Sir Eustace a hard look. "Did they award more than one of them, then?" he asked Trevor, his demeanor now much more like the lamb than the lion, though a touch of the leonine remained.

"No, sir, not in gold, sir," Trevor said earnestly. "The other boys got silver ones, if that's what you mean."

Sir Eustace pulled a second iPod from his briefcase and set it on the headmaster's desk. "What about this, then?" he demanded. The headmaster picked up the second iPod and held out a hand for Trevor's. Side by side the two were clearly different, the one gleaming like the cohorts of the Assyrians, the other not even honest brass.

"Clearly they are not the same," the headmaster said, casting a jaundiced eye over the offending object. He turned it on with the proficiency of a man who had confiscated numerous such devices, inspecting each for offensive music and salacious video. "I don't believe this belongs to any boy of this school, Sir Eustace, and I resent..." He checked himself, looking at Trevor. "You may go, Mr. Trevor," he announced. "Please report to class immediately."

"Yes, sir." As Trevor lingered outside the headmaster's closed door he could hear voices raised in indignation, though he regrettably could not make out the words.

***

Trevor didn't see O'Hara or Moriarty until afternoon sports, a class that gave less keen sportsmen ample time to stand around and discuss matters of greater interest than the l.b.w. rule and the finer points of football scrums.

"How on earth did you get it back?" he demanded of the two, unwilling to name 'it' lest they be overheard.

"Child's play, my dear Trevor," Moriarty said with airy but well-earned confidence. "That website I found--ripping, simply ripping--had instructions on picking pockets as well. It was the work of a trice to abstract your iPod and substitute another."

"But where did you find one of that color?" Trevor asked, resolving to find this website himself. A growing young man could never know when life might present him with one of those sticky wickets that required a well-rounded education.

"That was my old one," O'Hara said, "the one that won't keep the charge. We slapped a coat of paint on the bally thing and Bob's your uncle." He grinned suddenly. "Did the old so-and-so turn it on?" Trevor nodded and O'Hara chuckled. "That's the best part: he'll never suspect a student owned it."

Moriarty spoke up. "O'Hara loaded it with a bunch of hoary old songs from the Eighties," he said. "Thriller, Hurts So Good, Jessie's Girl...."

"No one listens to that bally rot," Trevor agreed.

  



End file.
